Before Awakening
by Montesquire
Summary: The Plegian-Ylissean war just ended, and the Grimleal are on the move. Robin's mother flees with him, hoping to protect the young child. They stop and make a campfire, resting during the cold night.


_Western Regna Ferox, 15 years before Fire Emblem: Awakening_

A woman with hair the color of snow sat next to a campfire, warming her pale hands. She had on a heavy Plegian coat, which was thick enough to stop an arrow. It also did quite well warding off the chill in this snow blanketed land. A well worn Elthunder tome rested at her side, along with a battered iron sword.

A small child in a dark cloak sat near her, trying to read a book almost the size of his body. The book was a Plegian treatise on military tactics, a piece all high ranking officers of the Plegian military were required to not only read, but know by heart. The child had the same pale skin and white hair that his mother had, thankfully inheriting none of his father's looks.

The woman stoked the fire, which crackled in a soothing way. Being outside by a campfire reminded the woman of her time in the military, marching with her troops and making camp in the wilderness, those were among her fondest memories.

"Mother!", the young boy shouted, pulling the woman from her thoughts.

"What is it dear?", the woman asked, her eyes catching on the boy's right hand, which bore the mark of Grima. It had six eyes sketched into its arching design, and it seemed to be staring right at her.

"What's an ambush?", the young boy said. He held up the heavy book, pointing his finger at the unknown word. The woman smiled, pulling her eyes from the purple mark.

"An ambush is when one group attacks another group, but tries to sneak up on them. The goal is to surprise your enemies and catch them unaware, hopefully causing them to panic and lose quickly.", the young boy put his hand on his chin and stared at the ground, deep in thought. The woman beamed, she was proud of her smart boy. He was very inquisitive, and loved listening to stories from the woman's former military days.

"Is that what those scary men tried the other day?", the young boy asked, a small tremble in his voice. The woman frowned, and instinctively looked towards the woods, half expecting to see a patrol of Grimleal. Ever since the Ylissean King had died and his child ended the Plegian war, the Grimleal had been free to resume their hunt.

"Come here little one.", the woman held out her arms and the boy scooted over, getting pulled into a tight embrace. The boy was enveloped in his mother's coat, and snuggled close, smiling.

"Robin, no ambush is perfect. There are signs before each one, like how clouds appear before it starts to rain. I'll always see these signs, because the people chasing us are very dumb.", the woman said. The boy giggled, and the woman smirked.

"Momma, promise me something?", the boy asked, a yawn cutting the sentence in half.

"Anything sweetie.", the woman said.

"Promise that you'll never leave me.", he asked. The woman hesitated for a moment.

"I promise.", she said.

"Yay.", the boy mumbled, closing his eyes and pulling closer to his mother. After a few minutes the child fell asleep, and the woman held him tightly in her arms.

"I'll never let them get you my little songbird," the woman said, her eyes brimming with tears, "No matter what.".

…

 **Author's Note**

 **After reading some of my older stuff I've been trying to write better, focusing on quality over quantity. I've rewritten this thing so many times, and I'm pretty tired, so if you spot a typo or grammatical error that I missed please let me know. Any tips towards bettering my writing are appreciated as well. Now about the story.**

 **I've actually wanted to write something about Awakening for a very long time, I even have some very poor quality rough drafts that I've scraped on my cloud. I wanted to write something about the Ylissean-Plegian war, (which was probably about capturing/killing Robin, as he's Grima's vessel), for quite some time. I had a piece I was working on from Emmeryn's perspective, but it got way too out of focus and long winded. Then I imagined a young Robin and his mother sitting by a campfire in snow, and I decided to go with that.**

 **Robin's past is never given any depth, other than that his mother ran off with him and the Grimleal were hunting him. Given this, I decided to make his mother a tactician like he would one day become, wearing the coat that he would one day inherit. I mean Robin passes on his coat to Morgan, so it's not too far fetched. Plus his mother being a tactician could help explain how the Grimleal never caught Robin, though they may have caught up with his mother. By the way we know Emmeryn was ten when she took power, which was fifteen years before Awakening, and I always thought Robin was 20 or 21 in his base model, so in this story he's around 5 or 6. Also I picked male Robin just because I liked it better in this story, female Robin would make absolutely no difference if you want to imagine it like that.**

 **Hopefully you like this, I tried to make it snappier than my usual writing style, though I'm uncertain if it's truly better. Once again, if you have any tips or critiques, any comments at all please post something, I'll be certain to read it. I'm probably gonna write a longer Awakening piece, though I'm still undecided on the ship. ChromxFRobin? LucinaxMRobin? VirionxLibra? I don't know, I'll decide soon though.**

 **P.S.**

 **If you're here wondering about my Fates story, oh boy am I sorry. I got a bit distracted and went on a Final Fantasy binge, and then I couldn't figure out a way to end it without it being way too short. I'll get it done though, eventually. Thanks for suffering through my non existent schedule, you're really the best.**

 **P.S.S.**

 **I'm gonna leave this open, cause I think I may add on to this. Probably not Robin's story, but maybe a quick scene from another character, like Chrom after Emmeryn gets rocks thrown at her. This is less a single story, and more a collection of story's all explaining one period from different characters' perspectives.**


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